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<title>on slash: why it appeals to so many, its gender demographics, and how it will change with the expansion of mainstream fandom by MavenMorozova</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29587734">on slash: why it appeals to so many, its gender demographics, and how it will change with the expansion of mainstream fandom</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MavenMorozova/pseuds/MavenMorozova'>MavenMorozova</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fandom RPF, Multi-Fandom, Star Wars - All Media Types, Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fandom, Fandom Meta - Freeform, Homophobia, Incest, M/M, Male Slash, Mentioned Racism, Meta, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Shipping, Slash, Transformative Fandom - Freeform, Yaoi, background ships mentioned</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:42:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,822</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29587734</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MavenMorozova/pseuds/MavenMorozova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A meta essay on the reasons fans ship slash on such a large scale, especially cishet women. Discusses the ships of Destiel, Wincest, and Reylo, as well as has a content warning of discussions of homophobia, incest, yaoi, and racism.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>on slash: why it appeals to so many, its gender demographics, and how it will change with the expansion of mainstream fandom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>also <a href="https://nitheful.tumblr.com/post/643664384232751104/on-slash-fic">posted on tumblr</a> (@nitheful).</p><p>NOTE: After receiving a few comments on my analysis of the spn shipping fandom, I want to preface this by saying:</p><p>a) I've never watched supernatural. I use the show and its fandom here as an accessible example to examine slash. I <i>have,</i> however, watched clips of the show and read fic of the ships. And I have friends who are spn fans. But I've never actually watched the show itself.</p><p>b) that this essay is not meant to bash either Destiel or Wincest, nor their respective fandoms. I vastly oversimplify and generalize the two sub-fandoms for the purpose of creating an easy example of slash <i>as a whole,</i> but I realize that it may come off as a little judgemental, so I'll just let y'all know in advance that I ship Thorki and Reylo, and the deeper I dive into the spn fandom, the more I want to ship Destiel and Wincest, too...okay, onto the essay!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Let’s begin by defining slash. According to <a href="https://href.li/?https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlashFic">TV Tropes</a>, “<em><b>The most common definition of Slash is a Fan Fic that pairs two (or more) characters of the same sex. Often, ‘slash’ is used for male/male pairings only</b>, while ‘femslash’... [is] used to define a female/female pairing.</em>” For the sake of clarity in this post, I’ll be using “slash” to refer to m/m ships only, and “femslash” for f/f ships.</p><p>So...seems simple. Most of us ship male characters together. This has been a hallmark of <a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Transformational_Fandom">transformative fandom</a>, way back to Kirk/Spock in the 60s. It’s only recently that the vast amount of slashfic consumed and written by mainly women, presumed to be cishet women, has been slid under the microscope of the critical eye. This isn’t a bad thing, of course; being self-aware of why people do what they do is always beneficial, especially when that has to do with hierarchical social structures. However, it is a marked, albeit slow-progressing, change.</p><p>Prior to modern fandom, where social media usage was <em>not </em>the primary source of fan gathering (let’s just call tumblr a social media for organizational purposes), there was generally an unspoken understanding that <b>slash shipping (and shipping in general) was the way it was. It did not reflect one’s values, nor their desire for canon</b> (though of course, for many it did). So to continue on in this exploration of pre- and post-social media slash, we have to talk about shipping in its own right.</p><p>Shipping has many different meanings to different people, as do its subsections (anti [ship], pro shipping, self shipping, etc). I personally use the widest band of definition possible: simply that <b>one sees the romantic and/or sexual potential of two characters and wants to explore that story further.</b> Plain and simple as that. This is why I am pro shipping; it does not mean that you support the relationship or want it to be canon, rather that you’d just read fanfic for it because the dynamic <em>fascinates </em>you (and this is where much darkfic comes in...but that’s another post entirely).</p><p>To some fans, however, a ship only exists for their own pleasure, a way to live vicariously through the characters. In this way, fans ship two characters because they’re hot, not because they want the dynamic or the story. <em>And this is perfectly</em> <em>valid!</em> The reason why someone ships something is irrelevant. But it’s important to note that this reason exists because it leads to a couple notable trends in shipping:</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>1) Cishet women may ship a m/f ship because they relate to the female character and find the male character hot. Example: reylo (this is not to say all reylos do this--I'm a reylo and I don't find Kylo attractive--but I do think it’s a factor). This is why main female characters are shipped with so many people. If we’re talking about Star Wars, we get Padmé/Maul and Ahsoka/Anakin, which don’t make sense in terms of canon, but are shipped because the female shippers find the male characters hot. Which leads into the next option.</p>
  <p>2) It <em>also </em>makes sense for traditional slashers (cisgender, heterosexual women) to only ship or write/read about m/m pairings if they only find men hot. Do you see what I’m getting at here? <b>If they only want to see characters sexually who are hot, and they are only attracted to men, no women will ever be involved in their fic</b>. This also explains the truly heartbreaking lack of femslash content within <a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Curative_Fandom">women-dominated transformative fandom</a>.</p>
</blockquote><p>Okay. Now that that’s out there, we’re going to have to get into what may be uncomfortable topics, so be aware: homophobia &amp; incest will be discussed ahead! Some of this meta is inspired by <a href="https://go-diane-winchester.tumblr.com/post/182353627766/how-can-wincest-fans-be-against-the-idea-of-dean">this post</a> by <a href="https://tmblr.co/mKZQzHz_Ts1aKJwybZGLp4Q">@go-diane-winchester</a>  about the <em>Supernatural</em> fandom (specifically, wincest vs destiel fans from a wincest shipper’s POV), which I disagree with on a couple fronts, but it gives insights into the minds of traditional slash shippers and is pretty informative! Especially to me, as someone who has never watched and never will watch <em>Supernatural</em>. Now, let’s continue!</p><p>As I’ve mentioned, many have seen shipping as sexual escapism, a fantasy. Which basically means that in Ye Olde Fandom Days (okay...I’m talking about the late 90s-early 00s here),<b> those types of shippers might have seen m/m gay ships as a <em>sexual fantasy</em>, rather than something to look up to with canon expectation.</b> On its own, this interpretation is...okay. But it can <em>easily</em> lend to homophobia, because someone who is homophobic might not be alright with gay people in real life (especially women!) but will be perfectly fine with slash ships in fanfic. This is not to generalize female cishet slashers; there are a litany of reasons that people ship slash, but this is just one of the more dangerous ones. It’s not only homophobic, but fetishizing. There’s nothing wrong with finding sex hot, no matter what the characters’ genders are, but seeing gayness as wrong, and<em> only</em> okay as a fantasy for a straight woman in fanfic, <em>is</em> bad. And there’s a big difference between the two.</p><p>Just to expand on that a little - the reason why this is a problem is because one of the tenants of pro shipping is that it’s okay to write about incest, minor/adult and other unhealthy dynamics in fic, because it’s fiction and therefore not real, not reflecting the irl desires of the author or reader. By putting slashfic at this same level/expectation, you are equating being gay to being incestuous or pedophilic, even if that was not the intention. But I digress...</p><p>Over the past twenty years, as the internet has developed and grown into its contemporary form, <a href="https://href.li/?https://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/us/lgbt-rights-milestones-fast-facts">being gay has become more acceptable</a> (and legal). This is evidenced in both political gains such as the repeal of the ban on LGBTQ+ people serving in the military and nationally legalized gay marriage (USA), as well as cultural ones in TV and literature about (canonically) queer characters and relationships. Queer folks growing up in this new society, the older Gen Z’s (myself included!) have had the luxury of living in a slightly less homophobic/transphobic world. In other words, we have hope for our gay ships to be canon because the world is changing, and we have learned that it’s possible! <a href="https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lCU__9ZXuA&amp;ab_channel=soberdenatural">Even in a shitty, homophobic, queerbait-y, superhell-y way</a>, it’s possible!</p><p>
  <strike>Anyways. How am I so salty about a show I’ve never even watched???</strike>
</p><p>Because of the world we live in, there’s now an expectation for gay ships to progress further than fanon, to extend into canon and receive the same treatment as the shipping of a heterosexual love triangle. And as such, the perception of traditional slash is changing. <b>No longer is it seen through the lense of cishet women, but through a group of newer fans, many of whom use slash to figure out their sexuality or gender</b>. Slash is <em>still </em>a valid form of fic for cishet women, too! <b>There’s a freedom that comes from reading slash where the reader doesn’t have to worry about the gender politics of sex and power dynamics because both the partners involved are men!</b></p><p>Basically, we’re in that weird interim period where some people still see slash as for fiction-only, and some see it as a path towards an endgame. Example: wincest shippers would never want it to be canon. Destiel shippers would (and it happened...I guess...). The founder of Ao3 herself, Naomi Novik, <a href="https://href.li/?https://fanlore.org/wiki/Naomi_Novik_AMA_Controversy">said that she wrote slash in her fanfic for fun, while in her pro work she wanted to include more female agency</a>. I’m not here to defend this response; though I love her, the response she gave to an important and valid question about representation in her novels was lacking. And unfortunately, this is all too common among straight [women] authors (I asked the same thing to Marissa Meyer and was also deflected).<b>The point here is that some people equate slash = fanfic, which is a <em>very</em> different experience than someone who equates slash = canon.</b> This is oversimplifying, but I hope my explanation is coming through here!</p><p>There’s one final thing I must touch on before concluding this post: <em>yaoi</em>. I can’t really speak on this, as I’m not involved in anime or eastern fandom in general. I do know, however, that in a lot of fandom spaces, girls see “boy x boy”/”boy’s love” as a <em>genre</em> rather than simply gender. <a href="https://href.li/?https://zhannya.medium.com/thoughts-on-yaoi-as-a-genre-4123bd2e4f02">In the case of shojo manga, where much yaoi resides, it sort of is, because that content depends on a specific dom/sub-masculine/feminine dynamic</a>. This is not a post that will either condemn or praise yaoi/shojo/etc; it’s not my place. <b>But slash operates in a similar fashion; it usually forces mlm into “top”/”bottom” stereotypes, and is consumed and created by straight women.</b></p><p>There are often hypocritical double standards held for yaoi/slash. <b>Many tumblr residents will bash yaoi with all their might and yet religiously consume slash, when much of it is the same.</b> It’s also interesting to note that there are certain ships within fandom that will heavily lean towards the “yaoi” tropes of age and height difference, submissiveness, etc. The associated fanfic reflects this, and the fanart is often drawn more anime-style. Therefore, fandom <em>is</em> impacted by culture, and it is lowkey racist for queer white people to rail against yaoi while not fully understanding the cultural context, which I don’t fully know myself, especially as someone who looks into the “genre” as a researcher, not a fan.</p><p>
  <strike>And not to dig myself into a tangent, but eastern fandom has <em>always </em>been more accepting of taboo dynamics; teacher/student and bully/nerd romances are common in dramas, for instance. Again, that’s worth a whole other post.</strike>
</p><p>I think that as western culture continues to become more accepting of gay relationships in mainstream media, fic will come to reflect that, too. Slash ships will be written in a more “normal” fashion, perhaps by fans who are mlm themselves, <b>and there will be less of a need for a saturation of m/m ships in fandom because we will have that representation onscreen! </b>(And can we get that for wlw too please?!) If transformative fandom ever appeals to men (even straight men!) as much as it does for women, we may also get more femslash (again: this is coming from the assumption that an author wants to write about characters they are sexually attracted to).</p><p><em><b>TL;DR:</b> there’s no one reason or even dominant reason that women write slash. People are quick to cry “fetishization!” </em>or<em> defend it without taking criticism and looking deeper, and there’s a whole myriad of factors that play into the human psyche. And though slash and transformative fandom are changing, one thing that will always stay the same is our love for shipping characters.</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And that’s a wrap! What do y’all think? Let me know and let’s continue to critically examine fandom!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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